Something to look forward to
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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Its the ultimate grift. Promise your followers something later they can never prove or disprove while making them sacrifice everything for you now. Thus, you get millions of morons/idiots out there talking about “my reward is in heaven/jannah” while their pastor/cleric/priest/motivational speaker is just livin like an absolute rich degenerate in the real.
Then they have the nerve to tell you suicide negates your happy ending.
Are they wrong though?
That’s how they keep getting the collection plate filled every week.
Honestly this is a big thing I have never understood about Christianity and would love insight on.
I was born and raised Jewish. My dad’s family has never been religiously Christian. I understand basics of Christianity but I had no upbringing with any Christian beliefs the way most black people in the US do. In Judaism, while there is talk of the Messiah and being prepared and doing good things so the Messiah comes and doing good deeds so you’re in the “good” book, I feel like the focus I was always taught in my Jewish education was, “Be a good person because it makes the world better right now, and that’s your job, to take care of the world now.” There is no preoccupation with Heaven or Hell to the degree that there is in Christianity, largely because we don’t have a conception of Hell that matches Christianity. Purgatory I guess is the closest parallel. Likewise, there was no prolonged or regular discussion of Heaven in my Jewish education that could mirror Christianity. I went to a Jewish school that served Jewish students of all denominations and attended Jewish summer camp held at a very orthodox Jewish school. I attended synagogue irregularly but did go enough to know the prayers well, and we prayed daily at school. I feel like our prayers don’t really focus on any of that, either.
Christianity always came across to me as “living to die” and I genuinely want to understand how that appeals to anyone. How does one feel motivated or even connected when the “reward” isn’t until death?
shit really came from the chattel slave’s bible
Alot of religion is all about suffering for the greater good. Or belonging to your God.
Religious folk kill me. No pun intended.
I thought I was the only one who found it depressing.
Yt Jesus got black folks in a chokehold
It keeps the slaves from revolt. To the present day.
Seeds planted by colonizers. Watered by our own.
Yeah like I would rather be happy now instead of chasing something that probably isn’t real. Christians believe in God because otherwise they’d have to contend with the fact they’re always scared of something, be it Hell, minorities, or the fact there’s probably nothing after death.
Side eye when your pastor pulls up in a Bentley.
Pretty much
Morbid optimism
That attitude is one of the many reasons I started practicing Buddhism. I get that God is in the eye of the beholder, but people really act like there’s no reason to fret over any issue because it’s God’s plan or God will take care of it. I had my grandmother tell me to my face that she’s not worried about climate change because God will fix it.
I liked the message Buddhism provided (be mindful of your speech, actions and thoughts in the moment as they all have consequences and there’s no creator God to save you, you must be dependent on yourself) before I started believing in the cosmology.
A Napoleon quote. “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”
I remember thinking about this when listening to one of my favorite gospel songs which was”lay my burden down” I didn’t realize the burden was life It’s like got older. Another of my favorite gospel songs and dying is by Mahalia Jackson. I prefer the live version but a well-known version is the one she did for this movie [here](https://youtu.be/oQwlR94AURg?si=W5TQczmMDhOP1XP3)
There’s a really well done poem from a poet of the Black Arts Movement that speaks to this point in a poignant way and I wish I could remember the title or the person’s name. All I can remember is that it’s a man.
It’s not Gil Scott Heron, Eldridge Cleaver, I thiiiink it might’ve been Amiri Baraka. I hope I find it-
EDIT!!! I’m so happy I found it. It was “Dope” by Amiri Baraka. Best heard as recited, here
https://youtu.be/qJ89lZDBDR4
He explains, it’s from the point of view of a junkie, but who’s really the junkie.
I’m going to tell my wife, right now, I’m the living embodiment of an atheist gospel song. Especially since I have suicidal ideation and plan on clocking out someday.
Edit: She, being an evangelical believer, was not particularly pleased. That’s okay, though. It’s not my life work to make her happy.
I hate this mindset. Life doesn’t have to be shitty for anyone, we literally all know who’s the problem, the rich. Elon could literally choose to solve half of the world’s problems with the snap of a finger, he just doesnt.
life is a test. You could take the easier and darker path and live it up on earth and spend the afterlife in hell or go the harder and righteous path and overcome adversity on earth and live in the beauty and serenity that is heaven. Ngl if it wasn’t for the occasional guilty pleasures living on earth would be terrible.
😭
Amen
I wonder if this is why I gravitated more to what was known as Contemporary Christian songs. Though I think now they’re just referred to as Secular music.
Like, from the songs I can think of, they seem more optimistic about present life as well as what’s to come.
There will be a payday